Thermal control of sequential on-surface transformation of a hydrocarbon molecule on a copper surface.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27619070.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12711 and PMC identifier 5027244.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
On-surface chemical reactions hold the potential for manufacturing nanoscale structures directly onto surfaces by linking carbon atoms in a single-step reaction. To fabricate more complex and functionalized structures, the control of the on-surface chemical reactions must be developed significantly. Here, we present a thermally controlled sequential three-step chemical transformation of a hydrocarbon molecule on a Cu(111) surface. With a combination of high-resolution atomic force microscopy and first-principles computations, we investigate the transformation process in step-by-step detail from the initial structure to the final product via two intermediate states. The results demonstrate that surfaces can be used as catalysing templates to obtain compounds, which cannot easily be synthesized by solution chemistry.